


You're too much to lose

by GibbousLunation



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 159 and 160 spoilers, Getting Together, Love being the strongest uppercut to peter lukas that could possibly be conceived of, M/M, The Lonely - Freeform, classic Peter Lukas vibes, martin is a badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: Jon figures it out a little bit faster; Martin's been leaving doors open for them, for Melanie, for Basira, for Daisy, and for Jon. He's been making spaces for them, keeping the fog at bay. There is no exit made for himself, though- Martin's not planning on walking back out.Elsewhere, Martin figures he's got one last surprise in store for everyone.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 37
Kudos: 325





	You're too much to lose

The thing was, Martin had always known he was lonely. Hard not to, really. When you spend your teens and twenties attempting to earn someone’s love who was supposed to just, have it ready and waiting, it does something to you. To your heart, maybe. To what you think you’re worth.

He’d _known_ he was lonely, but that’s not the same thing as _feeling_ lonely. You might know that there’s an oncoming winter storm, but you can stock up for it, weather it between movie marathons and blankets and you won’t actually feel the cold if you’re careful. You might know you’re catching the flu, but think if you just power through it, you won’t actually be sick. That you can talk yourself out of it.

Martin was, disconcertingly good at talking himself out of things, it seemed.

Looking back at it, the long and the short of the pathetic nose dive that appeared to be Martin Blackwood (although, a nosedive required something of an initial starting point, a high jumping off point he’d never actually possessed), he’d been the perfect candidate for the Lonely. Probably the best possible choice, besides Peter himself. Sure, Martin hadn’t been born as a part of some long familial chain of distance and instilled desire for no one at all, but it had been cultivated almost beautifully in him anyways.

It had started somewhere in the young sepia-soaked days of his youth, trying to impress his classmates in any way possible, saying all the nice and polite things and sharing all his snacks, even his favorite treats, and maybe even before. It had started when his father left, and his mother had gone quiet and still and only wanted the blinds to be drawn all day and would shriek if Martin entered, even if it was to bring food or ask for money to pay the man downstairs who said he was shutting off their heating. It had started when he’d gotten his first boyfriend, when he nitpicked him over everything he wore, everything he said, his job, his car, and Martin just... let him.

He hadn’t even ended things between them, in the end. Tried to work up the nerve for weeks to say that maybe it wasn't okay, that maybe things needed to change, and gotten twisted up and given a 'you're too good for me' speech that they'd both known wasn't true. There'd been a missing spark, supposedly, or maybe it was the way that Martin voiced his own insecurities once, looking for some sort of warmth, and ruined the perfectly crafted visage of what a 'good boyfriend' looked like. 

Maybe it started growing then, too. With the realization that the real him would never be what anyone was looking for. A nicely framed truth, right there on the wall beside the missing birthday cards and late cellphone bills and his notebooks of half finished poems.

It had started, the penultimate moment, when he’d joined the institute. When Elias had Looked at him and seen all the desperation that had led him to lie so extraneously on a CV for a job he had no business applying for, and said yes. When Elias had let Martin stew quietly and diligently in the back rooms, perfectly tucked into just the right branch he wouldn’t entirely talk to anyone who wasn’t fully committed to the whole reading long hours with no social life set up. When Elias had assigned Martin to work under Jonathan Sims.

The thing was, Martin had spent all of his life chasing after people who’s time had to be earned, who’s compliments were so few, far between, and inherently fake, yet which he’d shelve in special places of his heart like he could line them up against the shores of himself and push back against all the uncertainty and doubt with other people’s half hearted words alone. When Jon had begun the insults and the nitpicks and the long lectures of incompetence, Martin had chosen instead to see the tired lines under the head Archivist’s eyes, the way he yelled about hard work was really noble, if you squinted, honestly. He chose instead to bring him tea, to break into old spooky buildings, to mould himself into the person he thought Jon wanted. If you squinted, Jon almost smiled at these things, almost said thank you, and that made it mostly alright, really.

Martin was good at seeing the spaces where things might be.

He wasn’t an idiot, he saw the pointed looks Sasha and Tim shared. Knew what their drink friendly conversations were about, even if they didn't outright say it. The way their questions of dating apps or ‘getting back out there’ always tasted conveniently whisky toned helped clarify it, but he knew. He knew he was pathetic, that Jon’s sneering upturned lip wasn’t actually a secret fondness, but…

The thing was, at the heart of his heart and the bones of his bones, he wasn’t sure he even wanted Jon to want him back. 

Which of course, is why Peter had honed in on him so ferociously. That sort of desperate masochism was hard to come by, he supposed. Had to mix in the exact right quantities of self depreciation, longing, and a hope tinged nicely with more fear than anything genuinely positive, and bam! One perfectly confused wreck.

Martin supposed he’d always just liked the idea of longing, wasn’t sure when it blended in with something real half the time. He knew, with Jon, that it was different. He knew that he’d never felt this sort of buzzing thrill when past men had smiled his way, that the compliments and attention he always craved felt more like a sunbeam on a cold day but Jon’s was an entire sunset display, ablaze with more colours than Martin knew what to do with. He also knew that it terrified him.

He wasn’t afraid of Jon not liking him back, exactly. Would actually be kind of nice in a rather bleak way, to know at least. He was more afraid that despite all the love he had to give, despite how well he could care for him, how many things he noticed, how many parts of him he carved off, it would never be _enough._ He was terrified of that calculating sneer being turned his way, except this time it wouldn’t have been something he could rewrite, or refile.

Martin had always feared anyone Seeing him, all of him, and finding the bit of Martin at the center of himself that he held so close, inescapably wanting.

Martin also knew that he was a coward. Bringing tea without so much as a word, offering to drive for staff outings so that people would thank him but he wouldn’t be expected to join in on any karaoke events or drunken conversations, bringing the most generic food items to the holiday parties. Martin was perfectly bland down to his jumper patterned heart, he knew. Because he’d made himself that way, so that no one could know him in any real way, so that they’d all think he was swell enough but not expect too much. No room to let anyone down.

It was interesting what loss could do to a self-image. To your priorities.

First, Jon had to go and get himself blown up. That had taken something from him, hope maybe. Left only the fear behind at first, fear that there would be nothing left of Martin, that everything he had been had fallen apart at the seams and he hadn’t even been given the decency to hold onto any proper guilt over it. Because they'd had a plan, because he’d mucked up their last hail mary mission somehow, even though he’d accomplished more than anyone had expected to begin with. Even though he’d done the impossible and s _urprised Elias_.

Martin couldn’t help but feel as though he’d been left on the shores of some distant island, that he’d blinked and in the span of two heart beats, lost everything that had made trying so hard hold any value. Part of him longed to walk into that grey sea, just to stop stressing and pulling and pushing at everything, to stop building himself into sharper edges, to stop having to make polite conversation that frayed so loudly at the seams.

The rest of him was holding on to something. A reason to sit in the sands and be patient for just a little while longer.

_Because Jon cared,_ some smaller part said. _He’d wanted you safe._

Even though he’d gone and _died_ and left you behind, he’d cared. Martin was sure of it.

Except, without Sasha and Tim to rally his disparate thoughts into sensible shapes, the tides kept creeping up that much farther anyways.

His mother had never been kind to him, not since he was too little to remember anything more than a nice humming voice and manicured nails in the summertime, but he’d loved her. He’d thought maybe if he just loved her enough for both of them, some of it might seep back into him. But she never had, Elias had shown him as much. Never would, in fact. And she’d died in the home she’d opted for outside of his care, without so much as telling him he’d tried his best. Without a thank you, without an I love you, without even a half decent good bye.

And, crucially, it hadn’t changed anything.

Martin could have learned the lesson then, that loving someone wouldn’t make them love you back, that an echo wasn’t the same as the real thing. That no matter how many times he tried to make himself loveable, interesting, good to talk to, nobody would. Maybe he had started listening, between the empty walls and the awkward glances, and all the unbelievable grief.

But then, Jon woke up. 

And suddenly, there were mugs of tea waiting for him instead.

Jon wasn’t good at the whole…. Emotional vulnerability thing. _Obviously_. He’d always functioned with walls up high and derisive anger as a distancing mechanism, and it had worked well enough. He didn’t really need people in the same way they seemed to. He got lonely, sure, but it was like slipping on a favorite jacket. It was efficient, less distractions that way. Didn't really register beyond a vague distaste. 

He didn’t have time for people, before everything. There'd been Georgie, of course, and she'd been a marvel of dragging him places and introducing him to people, gently pushing him outside of himself and into the moment. Georgie'd brought something out of him he hadn't known had been waiting, but without her it felt... unwieldy, maybe. Like a part that no longer fit the rest of the model. The Jon that had once worn eyeliner and courageously stomped on stage to sing loudly in packed venues was an odd but fond memory, but he was onto a different schematic, now. 

He'd always had a sense like something bigger was waiting for him, if he was just diligent enough he could attain it. He also liked a certain amount of organization, of x with y slot and a tidy desk, and was often angered by the minor ticks and habits of people around him on principle of it being outside of his control. None of that was an excuse of course, but it explained why he’d never noticed in any real way, how quickly the fears had overtaken everyone around him.

It was easy to justify Tim’s anger after Sasha, he knew they’d been close but- well, did he know that? Did either of them? The uncontrollable guilt and dread was easy enough to trundle down the road towards fury, easier still to throw it at the man who’d convinced you to apply for the job you were now inescapably tied to. It made sense, almost logically.

He was furious at himself as well, anyhow.

Melanie was similarly furious, and he couldn’t blame her for that either, despite the fact he’d been entirely absent during her hiring. He was sure if he’d refused her the first time, hadn’t coerced her into a statement at all, she’d have gotten away somehow. Not that there was a point in what if’s, but it was nice to have something to wallow in, something to justify the aches in his bones and the way his skin and chest pulled in strange ways.

He hadn’t noticed that he was losing them, though, until it was almost too late, or it was.

With Daisy, well, she hadn't been someone he'd lost. He could count their pleasant conversations on one hand before the Buried, actually. Basira, though, was floating without her. The one person who'd been consistently as logical, who'd helped from the moment they'd met, who for some reason believed in Jon despite all evidence to the contrary. For Basira he’d had to try.

Stupid of him, to count that as a victory then. As if saving Daisy could even the marks on his soul out in any meaningful way. It felt good, though. To use his abilities for something less monstrous. She'd been different too, and their conversations in the quiet half light of the archives about change, about resisting your nature, felt right somehow. Felt like maybe he could make more of himself than what he was supposed to be, what Elias planned for him to be. It made him believe there could be a silver lining somewhere underneath all the oppressive grey fog. 

_Ah_ , and then there was the fog.

Jon didn’t often feel overwhelmed by emotions, he’d spent so long deeming complexities of relationships and empathy as inconsequential, using the thick façade of academic derision to keep himself away from any encroaching fear that stuck too tightly. He regretted that, in parts and in wholes. Ironic he supposed, that losing his humanity made him want to cling to it so much more. To want to learn how to connect, how to reach out, how to _trust._ All portioned packages he'd never had a knack for, but now craved with an intensity that felt almost delirious. 

It seemed cruel, to be distant and harsh when they’d all lost so much as it was. When he’d caused most of it through his unthinking selfishness and unwillingness to actually see things as they were.

When he’d pushed Martin into the cold and then been upset to find the door closed after him.

He was worried, inescapably and irrevocably in a way that left him shaky and twitching. In a way that made the few steps down the hall to Martin’s new office seem an unfathomable divide, that made his empty desk awaken something cloying and thick in his throat and behind his eyes. Worried that Martin was stepping in to more danger than he knew, that the threads had twisted too far, that Martin was once again setting himself ablaze for the sake of everyone else. That he was sacrificing too much for them, that he’d rescue them, Jon, again, only to lose himself.

It wasn't as though Jon didn't notice, of course, the way Martin was cajoling and pressing back the cold and keeping it locked behind his office walls. He'd never met Peter Lukas himself, but he Knew the way Martin shivered near him, knew the sort of gut drop into a pool of cloying dread he'd felt. Well, until that faded, at least. Until everything about Martin seemed to start flickering and wavering at the edges and Jon didn't Know much of anything he was up to.

Jon worried that Martin knew more than he said, although that thought he actively beat back into the depths of the not knowing. Using the Eye to verify what his heart said was true felt like a dishonesty. He trusted Martin. Trusted him more than he could name, in ways that fractured and curled around his chest and ached in a way too big for words.

Jon didn’t entirely know when this thing in his chest had become so entwined with him, when breathing Martin’s name was a practice in self restraint, when thinking of him felt like climbing towards a feeling that regularly rose and crashed in waves far taller than him. When he’d looked at Martin’s freckled nose and curly hair and thought ‘oh’. It was one of those things that grew in the quiet spaces between thinking until it was all he could think about, the way Martin’s smile made his eyes crinkle gently, the way his hands twisted around mugs nervously, the bashful blush that rose across his neck and made his curls stand so bright.

He knew that he ached without him now. He knew that whatever unnamed thing they held had been stilted and shuttered in the quiet months of hospital halls, and the ensuing quiet halls of the Institute since Peter’s arrival. He knew that the part next to his heart that always knew where Martin was, that kept gentle tabs, had been harder to find.

But he trusted him, and he had to wait. Martin knew what he was doing.

“He’s not doing too well, is he?” Daisy said, breaking the stiff silence of the Archives unprompted. Jon hadn’t even heard her come in, he’d been staring blankly at the spot on the corner of his desk where a faint circle had been pressed into the wood. A stain from a myriad of tea mugs that no longer waited. He jumped slightly at her voice.

“Sorry?” He managed, attempting to sort himself into a less morose pattern of limbs. Her expression told him he wasn't exactly nailing the rouse. 

Daisy snorted quietly, crossing her arms and leaning more heavily against the door frame. “Martin. He seems. Snippy. Dark circles around his eyes. Duller, somehow.”

Jon frowned. “You saw him?” He couldn’t help the leap in his chest at the thought, embarrassing as it was.

“Just left his office. Started just, sitting with him, I guess. Once I see people leave. You were busy,” She shrugged.

Jon would need to process this information later, carefully. It was... sweet, in parts. Daisy, caring about Martin enough to just sit quietly with him, being able to seek him out at all. Jon was worried about Daisy too, in several different ways. Proud, as well, in a strange way he didn't know the name of. He liked her, this new version of her definitely, but he worried for the yawning need to replace silence in her. The way she hugged herself closer like she wasn’t comfortable with the space anymore. He felt an odd protectiveness towards her now that he'd never felt before towards anyone. Well, anyone except for Martin, he guessed. But that was different, somehow, because Martin had plans and wits and knew what he was doing and was all hard edges now because he'd had to go so long without anyone gentling them. 

“How-how is he?”

Daisy uncrossed her arms, “I just said. Not himself, that’s for sure. I think Lukas is… doing something to him. Changing him.”

“Changing him?” Jon’s brows shot up, immediately spinning to worst case scenarios and plans much more daunting than he could fathom. 

“Not like-“ _you_ , the word hung between them, Daisy reconsidered her words. “Not like that. Well, maybe that. Not yet, though. He’s…. harder to find, most days.”

Jon did not like the sound of that. The awareness he'd always seemed to have about his assistants had dulled, sure, but he'd thought it a byproduct of being... not present. Of becoming something else himself, maybe. Martin straying felt ominous, it reminded him of too many of his dreams chasing after voices calling for help but never seemingly able to reach them. 

She sighed. “I know you’ve said to trust him, but-“

“He knows what he’s doing,” he cut her off firmly, that much he could believe.

Daisy pushed herself from the door frame and walked closer, pursing her lips. “Does he? I’ve seen this before, back in the force. It doesn’t end well, usually with someone taking a shot not meant for them.”

Jon _really_ did not like the sound of that. A strange buzzing was beginning to grow behind his ears, and he swallowed carefully. “He…. He said he had a plan, and he couldn’t tell me about it but that it would work. I said I trusted him, Daisy. I need-” his voice broke, pathetically. "I need to trust him on this." 

She eyed him, for a long, weighted moment. Her voice was soft when she spoke, like she was trying not to step on the weak ice on a frozen lake. Like Jon was standing in the center of it, and the ice was cracking around him.

“You trust him to take care of _everyone else,_ sure.” Her eyebrow raised, pointedly. 

Jon opened his mouth to argue, and stopped. Martin had always put everyone first, put Jon first, since they'd met down in filing. Well, met being the lose term for the distant hello Jon had deigned to offer at least. Martin had changed in the past year, yes, but some things were bone deep, like the intensity of caring Martin always held near his heart. Jon listened to the old tapes, he knew about Martin’s childhood in a way Martin probably never wanted him to. He Knew about the way Martin gave up bits and parts and sums of himself like it was what he was meant to do, like it was the kind thing, like that's what he was meant for. 

Jon's chest was a myriad of twisting locks and snarled thorns and they were reaching up to tighten around his throat. 

“I…. you don’t think he’d…” Jon faltered, staring at that ring where mugs of tea had waited every morning without fail a few short months ago. Had Jon ever thanked him for that? He'd started making tea himself, without Martin around to portion things right it didn't taste the same, of course. But he made extra anyways, and slipped mugs onto Martin's desk instead. Was that the same as a thank you? Did Jon know if Martin knew how much he-

Daisy settled onto the desk across from him, Sasha’s old desk. Dust and old ghosts, that was all that seemed to be left of the Archives these days.

Jon met her eyes, the tense shadows under her tired gaze, the frown lines beginning to divide her face into clear chapters. “What would you do, if Basira….” He swallowed again, trying to breathe around the slow growing whine building in him. “If it was Basira.”

Daisy didn’t look sad before. When they’d met her, she was all barely tamed teeth and badges. She looked sad most of the time, these days. Or maybe vulnerable, Basira wasn't around very much. Jon knew something about people seeing what lies underneath and being disappointed, Basira didn't seem the type, but Daisy never seemed to smile anymore either. Maybe this was the same, too.

She placed her hand on top of his, and he twisted his palm to hold hers back. The tightness eased and strengthened at alternating turns, her blue eyes were sad in the sort of way she'd never have let show before- well, before. 

“I’d trust her.” Jon deflated, shame building behind the fear. “But,” Daisy added, eyebrow raised. “Basira knows she’s my compass. She knows I’m her constant, too.”

Her unspoken words could have been an avalanche. _Does Martin know? Have you told him? Does he know?_

_Does he know you can’t do any of this without him? That it’s not worth it if he’s not there to crinkle his nose and talk about rotary phones and make tea the ‘right way’ and call you an idiot in that voice he does? Do you?_

"You need to talk to him," Daisy added, and squeezed his scarred hand tightly. He wondered vaguely when they'd become this, as well. When the Archives had shifted from colleagues to friends to this, this last bastion of family against the impossibilities of everything else. When he'd started letting them down in so many intensely personal ways even as he tried to piece them back together. 

Melanie didn't speak to him anymore, Georgie had all but firmly locked her front door behind him, and these were understandable losses even as they stole his breath from him because he'd caused it. However accidentally, however well-intentionally, he'd led them astray by assuming he knew what was best. Basira didn't confide in him her plans anymore, and that was fine even, because she owed him nothing either. Because it was his fault she'd been tangled into things, too. Daisy was here, though. And Martin was...

Martin was an unacceptable loss, because Jon had never even _thanked him._ Maybe he could trust Martin and still make sure he left a door open for him. 

The next morning, he made two cups of tea. He made sure to add milk and sugar the way he saw Martin make it, but he was sure he still hadn't gotten it right. Martin's mug had a small cartoon cow on it with a bow tie, and the image helped stabilize him somehow. Every morning, he did this. Brought Martin tea before he arrived, just like Martin had always done for him, and then he would shuffle back down to his desk and pretend he wasn't aching apart at light speed in a thousand directions.

Today, he stepped out of the staff kitchen, and saw a light on in Martin's (Elias') office, and a shadow moving underneath the doorway. The hallway wasn’t insurmountable, then. The distance not a vast divide but the matter of fourteen squeaky steps in a far too silent building.

He could do fourteen steps, he would have done a million. He’d keep walking as long as it took for the world to turn back towards them.

“Martin,” he all but gasped, pushing open the plain and pale yellow door to his office.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly, the empty desk held its breath, and Martin was nowhere to be found.

Being surrounded by the Lonely had strange advantages, namely the displacement and the fog. Maybe a Martin from ten months ago wouldn’t have wanted to vanish, would have craved being seen more than anything. Maybe a Martin from eight months ago would have hated the silence, the tick of the clock too much like a heart monitor.

The Martin from the past few months had sort of fell into it, all at once and overwhelming at first, then steadily. The Martin from today wanted the nothing, wanted the peacefulness of having only his own heart thumping calmly in his chest, only his own thoughts to focus on, nothing to worry about in being seen or otherwise.

He hadn’t been expecting Jon to barge in abruptly, didn’t have the foresight to prevent that or avoid him in the ways Peter would have wanted. Interestingly, though, it seemed the fog had kept up enough of a film to keep them apart regardless. Jon couldn’t see him because he wasn’t where Jon expected him to be, but because Jon was where Martin hadn’t- sort of a one way mirror effect, he supposed. Made about as much sense as anything else, these days.

Jon looked, frazzled. Dark hair escaping it’s loose bun, grey fly away hair haloing his face in strange wisps making him look utterly ethereal. He would have hated the description, would have hated any poetic nuances Martin could have strung around him in that moment, if he were the Martin from months ago. The Martin from today saw how gaunt his face was starting to look, the way he was breathing heavy as though he’d ran a marathon, and annoyingly, the brief flicker of excited hope that flickered and stilled in his eyes. He also saw the two mugs of tea, the cartoon cow, and refused to name the feeling that instantly ignited in him, as though that would make it quieter. 

“Martin!”

He saw the exact moment the empty desk registered; a bit of a strange feeling considering Jon was looking directly through him to do so. Not unlike before Jon’s promotion, when Martin was a mostly nameless worker that was a bit too annoyingly ready to volunteer to help. He couldn’t quite stifle the complicated tumble of his heart at the sight of him, though. Not that he was trying too hard. Jon looked alive, after all. Alive and mostly fine, and the point of all this was to keep him that way.

Martin had thought Jon would leave, when he didn’t respond. He knew his office ran colder than everywhere else in the building, that the swirls of fog crept in the corner of your eyes the longer you stayed around, the fact that Peter could very well just abruptly appear at any moment sort of made it unpleasant as well.

A tape recorder appeared on the desk, the click of the on button gentle but far too loud in the spaces between them. Jon’s eyes snapped to it, something complicated flickering across his features before settling into a steeled resolution. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath, and placed the mug with the cow on it on the corner of Martin's desk exactly where he found it every morning. 

Martin refused to think about that, to look at it at all. He wouldn't be able to stay invisible if he did, wouldn't be able to stay whole at all. 

“Martin, I don’t know if you’re here. Or- or if this is meant to be a tape for later, but. Well. I need to tell you, and… I hope this is a sign that you need to hear it too.”

_Oh_ , Martin thought distantly, he hadn’t been expecting the earnest pleading note in Jon's voice. Or the careful way Jon’s eyebrows folded together, or the way his dark eyes were practically swimming in the overbearing fluorescent above. He’d been expecting more demands, more trailing ‘trust you’s’ that felt less like armor and more like a wrecking ball with every passing day, and his heart was barely hanging together as it was.

Jon bit his lip, Martin had never seen him do that before either. “I don’t know what you’re planning, and-and I don’t need to. I want to, believe me I- but I trust you, Martin. Not because of… efficiency or because its your job but. Well, you’re clever and you keep surprising everyone. Surprising me. I know whatever you’re planning will work, and I don’t need any uh, ‘spooky’ powers to have that much. It’s only….” He sighed, pushed a hand through his long already messy hair.

“I don’t know if what Daisy was saying is true, but I… if there’s a chance that you’re here, that you can hear me, that you’re planning on walking straight into the mouth of this thing. I need to know that I didn’t just sit here and let you go. Or… or worse.”

Martin could have cried, maybe. An older version of him that felt things near the surface, that wasn’t a consistency of crashing distant waves and rolling greys upon almost blues, he probably would have blubbered on and given up the whole thing. Martin could see that Jon meant everything he was saying, which was the worst part. Worst because Martin felt his heart clench but knew it wouldn’t convince him anyways.

Jon didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer, though.

“Martin, if. If whatever this plan is…. Whatever you and Lukas are working on, if it means you won’t be here in the end of it all. I’ve asked so much of you, I know-“ he made a quiet frustrated noise, it yanked at Martin like a thread on an old sweater. “If I can ask you one more thing, though? Don’t- please don’t make me do this on my own. I’m… I’m not… It can’t be worth it if it means it’s taking you with it. It can't be.”

_Not even for the world, Jon?_ Martin thought. _For you?_

Jon shook his head to himself, oblivious to his lack of obliviousness in a way that bubbled fondness in Martin’s throat. Distant and colder, but there.

His scarred hands clenched at his sides. “Maybe there’s no way out of this for us, maybe that’s…. too late now, but. It was sort of nice, to know you were here. The, the um. The tea, and the post it notes. I... I care, so much, Martin. I’d at least like to say we stuck it out until the very end. Together, if that’s alright." Martin couldn't breathe, didn't dare. He was unspooling in front of Jon entirely, and Jon couldn't even see it. "Don’t…. don’t go anywhere without me. Please.”

It shouldn’t have been poetic, not the barren pale office or the way the light hit every nook and cranny the way Elias liked it, or the way Jon looked as though he’d not slept for three years. He was haggard, practically, gaunter than usual, more frantic than Martin had ever seen him, small and boney and yet Martin felt hollowed out by it. Jon and his clever long fingers, chipping away at the shell of marble around Martin Blackwood with an aching slowness finally culminating in this, after all. Then again, Jon had always been meticulous and odd in the smaller assortment of moments.

Martin found himself wondering in beats of the ticking clock, thinking alongside the seconds and wondering if Jon had salvaged enough of his own for it to mean anything.

“Right,” Jon said, quietly. “I’m… I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. For making you wait so long.”

_It wasn’t the waiting_ , Martin almost said. _I’d have waited forever._

After all. Icarus hadn’t been felled by the sun alone, in the end. It was the sea that reached up and stole him. The sea, and the wanting. 

The thing was, Martin had never learned to subvert expectations in any noticeable way. For all his stature, he’d never taken empty spaces with any desire to fill them in with himself. Somewhere between the gaps left like skipping stones by his mother, by failed relationships, by the friends that talked about plans around him, by the half-hearted promises, he’d learned a sort of quietness that didn’t show in his face.

Martin wasn’t good at keeping still, keeping his nervous words to himself, keeping his assumptions and worries close by and silent. He liked to poke jokes at himself, to make himself small to let others grow taller, to double check and triple check for the barest scraps of validation, to assuage paranoid fears about whispered gossip.

He’d learned, however, how to play on what people saw of him in the process.

They saw him as bumbling, as nervous and non-confrontational, as unaware even. Sometimes people thought of him as incompetent (thank you early recordings for that one), and hey, Martin would not be the one to argue otherwise, but it did help to set the bar awfully low now and again. Even when it seemed he still could manage a way to trip over it, on occasion.

Interestingly, in the Archives at least, people never seemed to do the same with Jon. They piled expectations on him and he just kept growing into them, as much as he attempted to fight them otherwise. Elias seemed to see Jon as fairly point A to point B, where Martin kept confusing the organization of it all. Lukas seemed to take any slip forward into the fog on Martin’s part as an inevitability in a different way, like Martin being unable to resist was just another incompetence that happened to be fantastically convenient.

These two points had a two-fold effect.

Namely, when Lukas started painting Martin as some unsung hero he’d nearly laughed. A risky move on Peter’s part, sure, giving the low-self esteem one the hero’s end. Could either play directly on a complex or backfire entirely when the Lonely got strong enough. Lucky for him, Martin had always been the type to jump for any opportunity to help.

The other half-

“No,” Martin said, simply. Elias smirked, Peter blinked at him. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to kill Jonah. Maybe in a different setting you’d have had me, but I don’t particularly like how willing Elias is to let it happen for a start.”

“Two against one,” Elias lifted his hands, awful stretching smile only growing larger.

“Yeah, sure. But regardless of that whole situation, you’re missing something.”

“Wh- missing… Martin, I thought we had a plan?” Lukas looked almost genuinely hurt for a second, interestingly. Then something in his grey eyes shifted and he frowned. “Wouldn’t it be nicer to just be done with all this? Not have to deal with anyone but you and your thoughts?”

The fog in his head pushed and kneaded, the rise and fall of a breath. Wouldn’t it be nicer to just let the world turn without him? To take a nap and let someone else handle the fallout? A choice, the same one he pushed back and let gather dust and pretended not to notice. Martin breathed in, long and slow, and exhaled.

Martin nodded thoughtfully, “It sounds great, to be honest. That doesn’t change my point, though.”

The thing was, Elias thought in big picture if this then that scenarios. Lukas didn’t plan long term at all, just worked in direct one on one temptations and encroaching coldness that became the norm if you let it sit long enough. Lukas only threw your own thoughts back at you, led you into a trap you’d made all on your own. Martin had plenty of time to switch the roles.

The thing was, neither of them understood emotions beyond sorrow, beyond hot spikes of momentary anger, beyond fear. All encompassing, all purposeful, fear.

Martin looked directly at Peter, then. Thought of the long hours of playing roles and following the right lines just to make sure nobody thought to bother Jon too much. Make it seem like he was fighting just enough for there to be a worthwhile reward, but follow the thread of the fog enough that Peter wouldn’t chose Jon instead. Jon, who was so painfully and utterly obviously writhing with Lonely and all of which was because of _him._

“I love Jon,” Martin said, and the thought was like sunlight bursting through a curtain, like unearthing layers of dust, like finally breathing again.

“And what exactly is your point, Martin? Anyone can see how much you’d throw yourself into hell for our Archivist, I think it’s safe to say we counted on that fact.” Elias was a shark, searching for blood in the waters that Martin had let pool around him.

Because Martin was prey, Martin was the injured, Martin was too willing to do good to see where the lines intersected. Unless of course, he was the intersection. Unless he wasn’t prey at all, but the net.

“You almost had me, you know, with the Extinction. It made sense, for you to want to stop it, to need someone with one foot in both doors. And I wanted to know more about it, anyways.” He laughed, more a puff of air. The decision he’d never made sat heavy on his tongue. “Then you had to go talking like I was the hero.” He snorted and shook his head. Peter stayed quiet, but his eyes were round, probably hungry for the undercurrent in Martin’s voice, probably loving it as much as he hated it. “I know what I am, Lukas. I know I’m not meant for saving the world, that nobody in their right mind would bet on someone like me. Martin Blackwood, some chosen one? Pushed your luck on that one.”

“Isn’t that exactly why you could be, though? A nobody sounds exactly right for the Lonely.” Elias was still smirking, Martin thought of the flicker of panic between licks of flame, the way the man hadn’t so much moved to stop him but expected him to anyways. He thought of his mother.

“Sure, but not for the Beholding.” Martin shrugged.

Peter was frantic now, he was desperately attempting to appear otherwise. Martin basked in it. “What are we missing, Martin?”

And there it was, the cold and barren whole of his chest but the burning ember in the center of it all. A warmth like late nights and tea mugs, of dingy locked rooms and tired eyes with quiet admissions, of gentle thank you’s, of trust. _Of trust._

He smiled. His threadbare and worn out heart beat loudly. 

"I didn't chose the Beholding, I'm not choosing the Lonely. I'm choosing _Jon_ and... and I think he chose me back." 

The Forsaken was cold and bleaching, stripping sense and thought in cresting, dragging waves. At first, it terrified him. The idea that he could become nothing, that he was nothing, was overwhelming. He’d always held a distant comfort in the vague sort of nihilism that led him to things like stargazing, to watching the blinking lights and the vastness locked in between and thinking that they’d known him. For the briefest of moments, that light that traveled so long had seen him and he’d seen it, and if they both meant nothing in the big picture, they’d still existed here and then. Fairly melodramatic, he supposed. Believing that his short silvery breath in the night air could hold weight and meaning even as it disappeared in front of him.

After a moment, after he’d cried and yelled and screamed his throat barren, The Forsaken felt almost like a relief. A comfort to be done with all the daily stress, with all the pressed down and muffled emotions, to just. Be done. There was no after, here. No attention to earn or disapproval to dread, no loss or hope. Just the cresting waves and the endless grey fog. It was easy, to get lost, he thought distantly.

But then, his heart ached once, twice.

He walked, prints washing away behind him into nothing, the way forward melting into a thick blur between ground and sky.

Martin had a choice to make; the same one that sat on the corner of his desk with the clock ticking behind him, the same one that sat in Jon’s dark and worried gaze, the same one that pushed his shoulders down and his heart down lower. The fog spread between his fingers and curled inwards and he exhaled.

The thing was, Martin was used to being underestimated, even in the calculating ways that Elias attempted to estimate him after his unexpected prior variables. He knew how to play his cards right, how to hold the better ones for later, and when to not play at all. Jon on the other hand, was not used to being under estimated in the slightest. He liked to present the version of himself that said nothing about his person beyond ‘professional’, liked to radiate an aura that led to the least amount of questions, and mainly, liked to be in control.

The Jon running the Archives currently, was very much not in control.

Martin thought, blankly and distantly, of tea mugs pressed into shaky cold fingers, mumbled thank you’s on early mornings, the soft tone Jon had used with him after his statement. The way he might have spit insults and disappointments but instantly offered up the storage bed to let Martin sleep easier, the way he’d said ‘I miss you’ in the greyed out hallways.

The hospital room, the heart monitor, the draining hope that felt more jagged than real. “Don’t go anywhere without me.”

His shoe prints practically vanished under his feet before he’d even moved on, but they’d been there. For a moment, they’d been.

Jon had come to him first, Jon had wanted to run off with him. Jon had trusted him. Maybe Elias had been counting on the non interference, but then again, it could have broken his whole plan apart from the start. Maybe he’d estimated the amount of loyalty Martin held the exact right amount, but it was Martin wasn’t it. Pathetic, pining Martin. Martin who longed out of his league, Martin who didn’t know a healthy relationship when it smacked across his face. The Martin who’d taken rude words and forced them to mean something more in his heart when anyone with sense could have told him to do anything but.

But.

Maybe Elias had underestimated Martin after all, the same way Lukas had, to think he’d have held on to something that one sided so long.

_Martin_ , the ache next to his heart sang. _Martin, Martin, home, Martin._

_Jon,_ his heart echoed back. And his feet kept moving even if there was no ground below him anymore.

Peter appeared in front of him, a static whine and a roll of fog, a sigh perhaps. “I’d had so many hopes for you, you know.” And he did, Martin knew.

Peter wasn’t a man built of malice, not one of spite or jealous plans, at least not in the same way that humans felt. He set himself up for heartbreak and revelled in it, he made plans and always won only because losing was an offering in itself. He’d genuinely wanted the Lonely for Martin, and there was a chance Martin would never figure out whether it was an attempt at helping Martin or killing him. If it was an act of care or selfishness, because Martin had wanted it too. That was probably the most devious part of the fog, it pulled apart intention and empathy as quickly as you could realize it was present.

“Not a very good avatar of the Lonely, then. Hoping for company and all.” Martin said, though the snark of it fell flat. He was tired, that was all. No knives left to store behind his round edges.

Peter smiled, watery and thin. “Suppose not. You still could be, though.”

If he gave up Jon, was the implication of course. If he decided Jon was better without him. If he chose to be selfish just this once and let the tides roll him over until he was safe and away from the harrowing near deaths they’d all faced. All the ones Martin had been mostly exempted from, or ran from, or let people down during.

_Martin. Martin. Are you lost?_

Martin had a choice to make, the same one he’d had for months upon months. The tides rose and crashed around them, the static built and fell, and he exhaled.

Jon had been moments from entering the Lonely, he realized in hindsight. He hadn’t even questioned it, hadn’t prepared the way he had for Daisy, just started to walk right in despite the one-way ticket. Maybe he’d known it wouldn’t really be as final as Elias was alluding to, maybe his fear as insurmountable and cloying as it was, still found itself outweighed by the simple refusal to leave Martin alone anywhere like that.

Maybe it was just hope.

He’d known, which was the most terrifying part, that Martin hadn’t planned to walk back out. That he’d considered himself lost already somehow, that he’d counted himself as a non relevant pawn. It was a horrible reality, that version of Martin existing in the world, someone who’d always stayed so hopeful and optimistic, someone so reliable being broken apart and rending into a roiling foggy nothing. He'd known Martin had been trying to drag Lukas' attention on himself, to keep the man from doing whatever he planned with Martin to any of them. That the Lonely that seeped in through the cracks and halls when Peter passed by were the slivers that Martin couldn't manage to pull around himself instead. He knew Martin was trying to protect them, even if he didn't believe it at the end himself. 

Martin was inescapably and impossibly brave, and extraneously stubborn to boot. Jon _loved_ him. 

Jon had heard the tapes; he’d pressed play and listened and wanted the whole time to never have listened at all, because Martin should have had the right to tell him in his own words, if he’d wanted to say it. Martin should have had the comfort and the trust and been able to hear afterwards that his mother was wrong, that the version of himself he’d built up in his head, the one only worth anything if he was useful was wrong.

He'd asked once, at the start when Jon cornered him after being released from the hospital. Jon had unthinkingly asked if this deal with Lukas was worth it, thinking at the time of the Flesh and of that grief weighing Martin's broad shoulders down like a shroud. Martin's small smile was a heartbreak growing in quick strides and leaps into a tragedy, and Jon hadn't known it yet. Hadn't stopped thinking of it since. "Of course it is," he'd shrugged. And Jon hadn't meant to Know then, but it had hit him anyways. That Martin was doing this for him, that something had shifted but it was still all for him somehow. 

"Martin, if there's another way-" and later, he'd tried, he'd all but grabbed Martin by the hand and filled his head with ideas of escaping and leaving it all behind. 

"There isn't, Jon," he said. "It's fine if it's me, for once." 

Maybe part of Jon had refused to let any version of Martin disappear into nothing before Jon had been able to tell him. Before Jon could finally grab his hand, could press his forehead to Martin's, could press his love like a force of nature into Martin's veins and make him see that nothing could ever be fine without him. Maybe the ache Jon felt at the thought alone had been enough.

Regardless, he’d heard it. Elias, standing as poised and calculating as ever, asking ‘are you afraid?’ and it was suddenly undercut by another quieter voice. One Elias didn’t seem to react to, but that had hooks and warmth and Jon could never not notice if he’d wanted to. He had been afraid, had been terrified. Thinking that if he could find Martin, that maybe Martin would have grown tired of waiting. That Jon had taken too long as always to see the decision that had been in front of him all along.

‘Jon,’ Martin’s voice swirled across his mind, his heart. He called back, he called for Martin as easy as breathing. Maybe that in itself was a choice, one that burst through him a thousand times over when he'd finally put it into words.

Jon had been ready to walk into the Lonely to get Martin, been ready to give up anything and everything to make sure Martin wasn’t diving into a self-made prison alone. He'd chosen Martin, he would chose him a thousand infinite universes over and he'd never stop until Martin was safe, and happy, and _here with him._ He hadn't even thought to prepare, about ribs or tapes or anything else. 

He hadn’t been expecting Martin to walk himself out. 

"Hi," Martin's hand was cold in his, like static finally shifting channels. Like coming home. Jon had never felt anything more perfect.

"Martin," Jon breathed back, and it sounded like a confession. Martin's smile was the daybreak on rolling fields.

In hindsight, thinking of that beacon between his ribs, that part of him that knew in a way that was less eyes and more heart, the part that felt bundled in sweaters and warm mugs and round spectacles across freckled cheeks, he should have. 

It was about anchors, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Elias and Peter, working on their 27th marriage: can you imagine being in love? Gross.   
> Martin, passing a recorder to Jon and rolling up his sleeves: hold my drink, 
> 
> I'm @clankclunk most places!


End file.
